Links for the Week – 2009.08.07

SQL SERVER

Commenting Your Code Do it, people. I don’t comment enough of my code, but it’s something I keep in the back of my mind all the time. Fast Running Totals Solution With Ordered CTE I love Mladen’s solution to this particular problem. I usually would use a nasty self join or some kind of hideous cross join to accomplish this. Teaser: Left Join..the SQL ego crusher Mmmmm SQL brain teaser.

DEVELOPMENT

Software is a Wicked Problem sqlsharp It’s a port of SQLite to C#. I don’t believe source code has been posted yet, but it’s a great idea for portable development. TeamReview Ask your co-workers for a code review, and get one, all through VSTS. I’m not a fan of meetings. I hate them. I also hate reading your code. I’d be much happier reading your code from my cube. Now I can.

STUFF & THINGS

How to Set Someone Straight Correcting people is never easy. Use these four simple steps to lead to success. title unknown Teach for America founder on the pointlessness of planning, the importance of saying no, etc. This is interesting because it’s a collection of quotes, but the 37signals folks link back to their own articles. Very interesting stuff. :::WARNING – RANT::: Netflix Shares Internal Presentation on Company Culture I was going to try to build an entire blog post out of this. Then I realized it would sound like I rant, so I decided to ran in my weekly link dump instead because it’s my blog and youcantmakemegotobedearlyanymore! So… yeah, anyway. Netflix sounds like an amazing place to work – they do everything they can to let good employees innovate and reward them effectively. For people outside of the consulting world, it doesn’t make sense to hold them to some weird standard of X days of holiday a year. Most of our work is based around meeting goals, not producing sprockets. Does it really matter if I want to take an extra few days off here and there? If I’m a top producer, that should be fine. The other thing that really struck me about Netflix is how they compensate their employees. They hit a few things on the head that I’ve always agreed with – don’t bonus your employees, pay them. If you tell me, at hiring, that you’ll give me a $5,000 bonus in 6 months, pay me $5,000 more now. I don’t want a bonus. A bonus won’t make the payments on my sweet ride. They also pay their employees what they think they’re worth. Salary negotiations are a game. Playing games with employees that you allegedly trust and who are supposed to trust you is not a good way to conduct business. Many businesses would do well from reading this slide deck and learning from it. :::END RANT:::